A Good Man
by cellotlix
Summary: On a cold grey morning in October, 2170, a failing fisherman hires a strange young man with an ill-fitting name and a dark secret. This secret is the key - and the young man must choose whether to let it define him, or to rise above it and become a good man. BAaT/Post-BAaT Kaidan.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: In the game, Kaidan is very vague regarding what happened to him between 2169 (when BAaT was shut down) to 2173 (when he joins the Alliance). He says he went 'off the radar' and that he'd been a 'messed up kid' - very vague, very mysterious! Music to a story-teller's ears! Early last year when I started writing mass effect, BAat and post-BAat Kaidan was one of the first things I thought about when trying to get a handle on his character, but something always stopped me from actually writing it down. Today what was missing occurred to me, so I knew I had no excuse not to write this story. **

**As always, thank you for reading and for your feedback!**

On a cold grey morning in October, 2170, Benny Thompson brought his fishing boat to dock after a lousy haul in the Puget Sound, just off the coast of Seattle. He had no reason to expect that the day would be any different than the last interminable stretch of them – as captain of a failing fleet and owner of a failing fishery and dock, he was used to a grim procession of days where not even his deep love for the ocean could ease. Yet when he guided the _Andrea Lee _in, he found the dock was not empty. A young man with his hands jammed into his coat pockets stood there, and from the intent look on his face, Benny Thompson figured this stranger was looking for him.

"Captain Thompson?" said the young man as Benny leapt to the dock and tied the boat fast.

"You got him," said Benny.

"I'm looking for work."

Benny should have figured it'd be something like this. He peered up through the grey morning mist at the stranger, making no show of his scrutiny. The young man was lean and tired, and Benny almost though he had the look of a junkie, from the state of him. His clothes were little better than tatters, hanging off his wiry frame, and his dark hair was long and uneven, as if he'd taken dull shears to it himself and let the ensuing mess grow out. Yet despite this, the young man stood ramrod straight, his arms locked at his sides as if he were suffering from some kind of rigor.

"I can barely afford my own pay," Benny said, shouldering past the young man and striding down the dock. "And my expenses. I reckon you're looking for the sort of work that pays."

"I don't need pay," say the young man, matching pace with Benny far easier than Benny would have liked. It was only on solid ground that he realized the young man was a good few inches taller than him.

"How's it you don't need pay?" said Benny, quirking a brow. "You looking to work for the shit of it?"

The young man did not flinch at the bitter amusement in Benny's voice. "You've got an empty room over the shop," he said. "Give me that room and access to your kitchen, and I'll work for nothing."

"That's hardly nothing, now is it?" Benny said, but he fell silent, considering hard. "How do you know about the empty room?"

The young man pointed toward the vicinity of fancy shops just down the road a bit, their bright lights and flashing consoles visible even from the marina. "Cashier at the supermarket told me."

Gossipy bastards. Benny resolved to drive to Cally's thirty minutes north rather than give those nosy shits his business. Not that it would make much of a difference to them.

A rumble sounded just at the edge of the horizon, and raindrops splattered the already soggy dock, the wood soft and springy beneath their feet. The young man hiked his jacket up to his neck but otherwise did not react to the change in weather, and the sharp dip the temperature took as an autumn wind gusted the surface of the water into chop. The silence between them stretched long, but the young man was similarly unaffected, and as they stared one another down Benny found himself marveling at this stranger. He couldn't be more than twenty, yet he met the gaze of a man twice his age without flinching. Yet there was something dark in his eyes, inscrutable – like a shadow in thick mist – that gave Benny the peculiar instinct this young man was not as he seemed.

But putting aside his old suspicions, Benny knew he was struggling, and there was no doubt an extra pair of hands for a roof and three meals was a bargain firmly tipped in his favor. With that solid bit of pragmatism, Benny made his choice.

"What's your name, boy?" called Benny, breaking the silence at last.

"Daniel Peterson," said the young man quickly, but there was an odd note to his voice. Benny wondered if that was indeed his real name, and he was just unfortunate enough to sound like a liar when he told the truth.

"Any reason a bright kid like yourself wants in on a dead end gig like fishing?" Benny asked offhandedly, though anyone with half a brain in his skull would have heard the icy note in his voice.

The young man named Daniel did not speak for a moment, and that odd darkness crossed his eyes again, like a storm heavy cloud. "I want to work with my hands," he said finally.

That was true enough, as far as Benny could tell. "All right, Daniel. Welcome aboard," Benny said, and the two of them sealed their grey compact with a handshake, one that was unnaturally strong on the boy's end.

* * *

_2166, En Route to Gagarin Station_

Kaidan Alenko clutched his overstuffed duffel to his chest and tried to regulate his breathing just as the ship gave an almighty lurch skyward. In four counts, out for five. And again. One more time.

He was going to be sick.

Taking a deep breath, he shoved his duffel under his seat and laid his palms flat on his thighs, the better to mask the shaking of his hands. The kid sitting on his left let out a sound that was half a gasp, half a moan and buried his face into his sweatshirt. Someone behind him muttered an unintelligible prayer in a voice that was too much like a song. And all the while the ship vibrated violently beneath his feet, making his teeth rattle so loudly in his skull that he could no longer hear the sounds of a typical exit from atmosphere.

Maybe that was for the best, considering.

He'd promised himself he'd be brave. He'd promised himself he wouldn't freak out, though this was his first time off planet for longer than a few hours, and it would be his first time in deep space, far enough away that Earth was just a concept in the absolute void. Though in the end, those promises to himself came to nothing. He would be sick, and he would forever be the kid who was sick to his new peers.

"Oh, god," whispered the kid next to him, his hands threaded through his stringy, pale hair. Kaidan inched away surreptitiously, though if the kid did puke everywhere, a few inches give or take wouldn't make much difference. If he did puke, then Kaidan wouldn't be alone. All things said, he'd prefer it if nobody puked at all.

It was hard to believe that just a week ago, he'd been home, safe in the embrace of his decidedly normal life. His parents had treated him like a normal teenager and not a ticking time bomb. He'd treated them like any teenager treats their parents; a source of embarrassment and irritation, tempered with brief periods of tolerance. He'd been on the debate team, with near perfect marks in his classes. He'd had a crush on a normal girl.

His thoughts drifted to the day the suit had come for him, a leather case tucked firmly under his arm. After brief introductions, his mother had led the stranger to their living room, making small conversation to hide her nervousness. But the stranger was not distracted; he opened his case and removed a datapad, scrolling through the text too quickly for Kaidan to read the words.

"Your son is a biotic," he said, his voice completely inflectionless. "He will have to come with us."

Silence prevailed. He had known something was wrong with him, and so had his parents – after the first incident they'd taken him to a specialist who'd said much the same. But the situation was unprecedented; they'd had no idea what being a biotic meant. They hadn't known it made him dangerous, and necessitated an entirely new track of education.

"Kaidan," said his father, in a voice he reserved for only the gravest incidents. "Go to your room."

"But –"

"Now."

Kaidan dearly would have liked to insist he stay – he was fifteen now, and he was entitled to know about his own life, for crying out loud– but instead he bit his tongue and trudged to his room, hitting the door switch behind him. Though his father's censure did not stop him from pressing his ear to the door and straining to listen.

His father and the suit had talked for nearly the whole day, and though David Alenko was not given to outbursts and moments of strong feeling, Kaidan had heard his father raise his voice to the stranger through his bedroom door, not loud enough to make out the words, but loud enough to stun Kaidan into open-mouthed silence.

But in the end his father's words had come to nothing.

He was lucky, they kept telling him. Lucky not to have brain cancer, lucky to have a proclivity to biotics instead. Lucky to be among the first, lucky he'd been found before it got out of control. "You don't know how luck you are, young man," said the suit before he ducked outside, back into the misting rain. "You'll figure it out someday."

The whole thing gave Kaidan a bad feeling. The way he saw it, if he had to be reminded he was lucky in order for the fact to register, something was probably wrong with the picture.

Or maybe he was just paranoid. That was always possible.

"How long, again?" the kid sitting next to him muttered, digging his nails into his palm so hard that they left stark crescent marks.

"Few hours, at least," said Kaidan, spitballing.

"That's what they said?"

Kaidan shrugged, peering closer. "You going to be okay?"

"What?" Oh, yeah," said the kid, pushing his face further into his shirt. "This is just the first time I've ever been in space."

"Oh," Kaidan said uselessly, struggling to think of something encouraging to say. "It's not so bad once you get used to it."

"Yeah, I guess," the kid said. "Unless the ship blows up and we get vented."

"That hardly happens anymore."

"Yeah, but it still _could _happen," the kid pointed out, looking up at Kaidan with owlish eyes.

"I try not to freak out over everything that could happen," Kaidan said. "Otherwise I'd always be scared."

"I guess," the kid said again, burying his face in his sweatshirt, altogether unconvinced. "Then you're not ready when things get bad, though."

Kaidan decided not to press the issue; the kid was going to be freaked out regardless of what he said. It wasn't his place to judge, considering he'd been so nervous all day that his breakfast had formed into an icy brick in his gut, thunking around every time the ship shuddered. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Daniel," said the kid. "Daniel Peterson."

"Kaidan Alenko. Nice to meet you."

Daniel ducked his head in greeting. "Yeah. Look, no offense or anything, but I think I'm just going to put my head down until we're there, okay?"

"Oh - right. None taken." Kaidan attempted a friendly grin. "See you on the other side."

Daniel made a half-hearted sound and covered his head with his sweatshirt like a thick cotton veil, folding himself low in his seat and burying his face in his arms. He was too tense to have fallen asleep, but Kaidan hoped maybe he'd find some calm before they got to Jump Zero.

Silence reigned, and in the silence Kaidan's thoughts drifted. He remembered how his mother had cried only a few short hours ago, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "We're only a call away," she said, pulling him into a tight embrace. From the tone of her voice, Kaidan felt that she was trying to remind herself most of all.

Typically, his father had said nothing. But before Kaidan had turned to file through the terminal and onto the ship that would bear him to Gagarin station, David had steadied him by the shoulders and fixed him with a serious expression, perhaps as if to say _be strong, _before pulling him into a tight, yet brief embrace. Kaidan didn't have a demonstrative relationship with his father – in fact, at times he wondered if they even spoke the same language – but at that moment, he finally saw what everyone had told him all his life; in a certain light, they were nearly identical.

Then they were ushered away with the other parents, and Kaidan was led onto the ship with the rest of his new peers, also in varying stages of anxiety. This was no school trip – buzzing out for a few hours before circling back home, safe. This was different. This was serious.

He imagined he should take comfort in the fact that everyone was leaving their lives behind, but it did nothing to change the fact that he felt horribly, monstrously alone.

He scanned the ship, eager for a distraction. His class was about fifty students strong, all between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, and all seemingly overcome with similar terror and anxiety. Some affected ease, staring out into the darkness of space as if they couldn't be bothered with something as trivial as fear. One even examined her nails disinterestedly before folding her hands back into her lap. But there was no mistaking the way her lips trembled at the corners, and before long she averted her gaze from the void, unsettled.

In fact, the only person to seem more or less unaffected by their situation was the girl sitting to his right. He'd noticed her at the terminal, but his nervousness had temporarily given him tunnel vision. Now, though, he was free to observe her, and observe he did. On the surface she was just like any other girl he'd known – soft, small, inscrutable. But as the hours went on in relative silence, details emerged. Her upper lip was fuller than the lower one, which she bit at regular intervals. She had the most delicate nose he'd ever seen. Her hair smelled like vanilla.

It didn't take her long to catch him staring. He looked away, but not quickly enough; she'd definitely seen. An odd thrill ran through him. Suddenly, the silence in the ship seemed especially oppressive. He was certain he was making too much noise breathing. When he swallowed, he wondered why the whole ship didn't tell him to shut up.

"Kaidan, right?" said the girl.

He cleared his throat. "Ah – yeah."

She held out her hand, flashing him a friendly smile. "I'm Rahna."

He shook it tentatively. Her hand was delicate, like holding a bird, and her skin was the softest skin he'd ever touched in his life. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, same!" She withdrew her hand but did not stop smiling at him. "Are you excited?"

He started. "What?"

"I mean, about BAaT?" she clarified. "Training to be a biotic?"

"I haven't really thought about it much, to be honest," he admitted. It would have been more accurate to say he'd been trying not to think about it much, because the whole situation made him a little nervous. Not that he was a coward or anything.

"I can't help but be excited," she said, grinning again. "It's the first time I've been away from home."

"Same," he said, eager to have something in common with this beautiful girl.

"And we're part of something important," she said. "The first human biotics! They'll write about us someday, don't you think?"

"If it goes well," he said.

Her expression fell, and he could have kicked himself for being so thoughtless. "Oh – yeah."

"Well, I mean – I didn't mean that it won't," he said quickly. "I – I'm just nervous." _In more ways than one._

"It's all right," she said. "It's overwhelming too. I just decided I'm going to try and look at this positively, otherwise I don't know if I'll be able to get through it."

"I think that's smart," he told her. "I'll try and do the same."

She smiled, and it blinded him. "I'll hold you to that, Kaidan. I'll know if you're not, too. I'll keep an eye on you to make sure."

If she thought that would comfort him, she must not have realized her effect on people, him especially. He actually had to remind himself to breathe. It was only a matter of time before he did something really stupid, and now he wouldn't have the hope of whatever it was going unnoticed. "Sounds good," he managed, a bit breathless.

He maintained his preoccupied silence for the rest of the trip, all six hours of it. He wasn't trying to be rude – in fact, he would have liked nothing more than to be able to engage this beautiful, interesting girl in conversation – but the longer the silence went on between them, the more impossible it became to break it.

He was an idiot. He'd been an idiot on earth, and it looked like he'd be an idiot on Jump Zero too.

But hours later, just as the ship docked with Gagarin Station, she turned to him again and flashed him that gorgeous smile he was already starting to need, and despite everything, he found himself smiling back.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Many special thanks to my reviewers: magicklibra, Cortina2, jay8008, CyanB, Anon1, LilVy, mmwaveprincess, Jules Hawk, Empress of Cornwall, Eleneri, and Anon2, and to everyone else who read, faved and followed. **

**Forgive the slow start - once I set the stage a little more things will definitely get moving. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you thought! Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!**

Benny woke the next morning at 3am to find his new hire already up, making omelets in the dilapidated kitchen they now shared. Daniel looked up when he heard Benny thunk into the room, but otherwise did not react, prodding at the pan with a chipped spatula.

"Surprised you're up," said Benny, accepting the plate Daniel offered and taking a seat across from him at the small table in the corner, which shed flakes of grey paint like a dog sheds fur. "Usually I have to wait around for the new hires to drag themselves to the _Lee_."

Daniel said nothing, only nodded and took a measured sip of coffee, his brows knitted low over his eyes.

Benny and Daniel had said nothing since their agreement from the previous morning. Benny had instructed Daniel to take the day to make himself at home and settle up any business, because once they got started it would be an eighteen-hour days six days a week, and there would be little to no room for deviation from that schedule, especially not at this time in the season. The young man had merely shrugged and gone to the room, unpacked his duffel, and spent the rest of day reclined on the bed, his arm slung over his eyes as if to drown out the grey light. Benny suspected that for all his stillness, he did not sleep.

Benny took a tentative bite of the omelet. He expected it to be bland and flavorless, and he nearly choked in shock when a pleasing flavor burst across his tongue; just the right touch of savory with spice. "Where'd you learn to cook?" Benny asked.

Daniel shrugged. "Dunno."

"You some kind of chef before this?"

He shrugged again. "I guess."

The young man obviously was not interested in sharing details regarding his circumstances, and the way Benny saw, it probably wasn't any of his business anyway. So he let the line of questioning drop.

Benny had nearly cleaned his plate before looking up, a shapeless worry crystallizing in his mind. "You know anything about fishing?" he asked, irritated with himself for not having asked the day before.

"What?"

"About the sea, about boats. About fish."

"No, sir."

Benny wasn't thrilled with this development, but then again he hadn't been expecting to stumble on a seasoned hand in his time of need. As far as he was concerned, the only requirements for a position on his boat were that the boy work hard and stay honest.

"But I'm ready to learn," Daniel said, a little desperately.

"Right, so you've said." Benny stroked his chin. "From the state of my business, I don't have room to be picky. So you'll have to do, won't you?"

"Yes, sir."

But something caught the older man's eye as he watched Daniel clean the plates in the sink. Something about the room, maybe – the light being a little warmer, a little brighter; easier to see details. He didn't look so much like a young man in this light, but rather a boy; plain in the angles of his face, which possessed the echoed mannerisms of youth, perhaps wasted, perhaps shattered. Only a bit of stubble over his lip, familiar burns beneath his nostrils. Benny was not a man to be concerned with sentiment – he'd lived alone these last twenty-five years, firmly estranged from the rest of his family – but it occurred to him that this boy probably had family of his own out there somewhere, worrying about him.

Daniel caught him staring, and his eyes narrowed. "What?" he demanded.

"You got a family, kid?"

"It's Daniel," said the boy firmly. "And it's none of your business."

"You're working my boat, watching my back, and sleeping in my house. I'd say it's my business."

It was a bold bluff. There was always the chance the boy would glare, sling his duffel over his lean shoulder and hit the road, gone just as mysteriously as he came. But Benny knew the hard look of desperation, and he saw it on Daniel's face clear as daylight. He needed a place to hide, a place to work. A place to forget.

"Yeah, I got a family," he muttered.

"They know where you are?"

Daniel shook his head.

"Bad blood between you?"

"What? No – no, of course not. They're … they're fine."

So it wasn't pride that kept the boy away from his family, but shame. "They know you're alive?"

A nod.

Benny wasn't normally a nosy person – he'd been content to live his own life and mind his business well as he could – so he couldn't exactly say what it was about the boy that gave him a peculiar sense of responsibility. Maybe it was for all his steely-eyed bluster, Daniel was still quite obviously a boy, and a boy in pain.

With that realization, his suspicion softened into pity; an altogether unfamiliar feeling. He cleared his throat. "Ah – never mind, all right? Let's head out before the fish scare away."

Daniel nodded, and the two of them set out for the _Andrea Lee_ in relative silence. It was early enough that only darkness loomed before them, slightly tempered by the lights of Seattle in the distance and the green light at the stern of the _Lee_, reflecting on the unsteady surface of the water. But before the boy took his first step on the bobbing deck of the boat, Benny turned to him. "You ever serve?" he asked on sudden whim.

Daniel shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. "Sort of."

"Right. So you're familiar with following orders?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now you see this boat here?" he said, jamming one knobby finger in its direction. "This boat is my livelihood; the only thing that's good and mine in this whole world. So long as you're working my boat, you do what I say, understand?"

Something flickered in those dark eyes. "Yes, sir."

"I'm not going to ask you to kill your mother, but maybe we're out on open sea and we get into a bit of trouble. And I tell you to do something that you don't like, that you don't see the reason for, that you want to fight me on. You take a step on my boat, you are giving me your world that when the shit flies, you'll follow instructions without any lip. You step on that boat, and I'm giving you my word that you can trust I'm looking out for the both of us. Got it?"

Daniel shoved his hands in his coat pockets, eyes flashing with temper. "This little speech important to you?"

"Yeah, it is, you little shit." But Benny grinned; he liked temper and fire. Anything was better than sullen passivity. "We clear?"

It might have been the peculiar light of the _Lee, _but Benny almost thought a grin chased its way over the boy's face, like a cloud passing over the sun. "Yes, sir."

"Good." Benny swung himself up on deck, hands curling around the familiar shape of the wheel. "One more thing, boy."

"Yeah?"

"You work on my boat, you do it sober."

There was stunned silence, only punctuated by the lapping of waves against the hull of the _Andrea Lee._ "How did you -?"

"You've got burn scars under your nose," Benny said. "Small ones, but then again, I was looking for them."

"Right," Daniel echoed, sounding sick. He gripped the railing so tightly that Benny could see his knuckles straining, and his features were ghostly pale in the green light. "I'm not – I mean … I'm sober. I wasn't going to touch that stuff again, even before I came here. I swear. Just don't … don't send me away."

He hardly knew this Daniel Peterson at all, but inexplicably Benny trusted this declaration. Again, he knew desperation, and the bone-burning desire to shed it all and start fresh, out where the only thing between a man and the horizon was his own breath, his own being. He'd known it himself.

"All right, boy," he said, beckoning Daniel forward. "I believe you."

And no more was said. Daniel clambered onto the deck as Benny coaxed the old engine to life, and in the quiet dark of early morning, they took to sound, and to the open waters beyond.

* * *

No sooner did they take their first steps on Gagarin Station when they were quickly designated as Class D and directed to their dorms; two long halls with sterile rooms that gave Kaidan the odd feeling of having stumbled into a hospital. His peers took to them quickly enough, elbowing each other out of the way for the prime real estate at the end of the hall, and in the end he was left with the smallest room just left of the entrance to the hall, boasting two steel-framed beds with grey blankets pulled tight over the thin mattresses.

Kaidan slumped onto one of the beds, pretending not to hear the dismal crinkle of the mattress as it gave under his weight. Had they gone out of their way to paint the walls the same color as the blankets? Being a child of the Pacific Northwest he was no stranger to grey, yet the color he knew was soft as mist over the water, the inside of a gull's wing – not the drab, dead shade that surrounded him now.

With a sharp huff of breath, he pushed those miserable thoughts away. He was stuck here for who knew how long. Fate had dictated he be a biotic, so there was no use moaning about what could have been. He had to make the best of his lot, otherwise these long years would seem even longer.

Someone cleared their throat behind him, and Kaidan jumped, startled. But it was only Daniel, looking strangely pathetic in the doorway. "Mind if we room together?" he asked in a small voice, his skinny arms crossed over his chest.

"Ah – no, not at all," Kaidan said, lurching to his feet needlessly. "Make yourself at home."

Daniel made an odd sound in the back of his throat, and only after he'd spoken did Kaidan realize how stupid his words had been. This place wasn't home – he doubted it'd even take the shape of a fair replacement. "Thanks," Daniel muttered.

After dinner, they spent the rest of the evening attempting to inject a little comfort and personality into their new quarters. Kaidan had brought a few classic novels and a well-worn poster of the Vancouver Canucks, which he wasted no time hanging over his bed. For his part, Daniel contributed a few scholarly texts, most of them pertaining to medieval history and pre-industrial Europe to their shared bookshelf. They put up posters and stored clothes in the dresser, pausing every now and then to comment appreciatively on their choice in reading material.

But what really turned their room around was a painting Daniel had managed to smuggle in his suitcase. It depicted a field of grain dappled by wide open sunlight, the sky above a cornflower blue. A faded red barn loomed benevolently in the distance, and in the foreground were two people – a man and a young girl – looking straight at the invisible painter with fond smiles on their faces. It was a stationary scene, yet Kaidan marveled; something about the vitality of color gave him the impression of real life. The field of grain could easily be undulating in a strong wind, and the people in the painting could be waving, perhaps calling the viewer to join them for lunch.

"Nice painting," Kaidan said, and as soon as he spoke he wished he could stuff the insufficient words back in his mouth. It was better than nice, it was beautiful.

"Thanks."

"Where'd you get it?"

Daniel's smile became fond. "I painted it. It's mine."

And suddenly Kaidan realized that the figures in the painting were probably Daniel's family, and this place so skillfully rendered was his home. "It's amazing," Kaidan breathed as Daniel secured it on the wall over his bed. "It looks like it's moving, you know? Like a video instead of still-life."

Daniel craned to look over his shoulder, his expression stunned and slightly searching, as if he hadn't expected Kaidan to appreciate art or to offer kindness, even though it was more than deserved. "Thank you," he said finally. "Dad though I should leave it, use the space for things I might need. But Sarah wanted me to bring it. So I wouldn't forget her."

It was a startlingly personal thing to admit, considering how Daniel had been standoffish up until this moment. "I'm glad you brought it," Kaidan said. "I wish I'd thought to bring something like that, something of home. Not that I could have painted it, but a picture maybe."

Daniel was quiet for a long moment. "Where're you from?" he asked.

"Vancouver."

He expected a blank look, but to his surprise Daniel brightened. "I've always wanted to live there," he said. "After I get out of here, I'm going to move there, buy a boat. Live on the water."

"And fish?" Kaidan said, smirking; he'd always thought fishermen were pitifully backwater, struggling to stay relevant in a world that hurtled toward technological advancement.

But Daniel nodded seriously. "Yeah, why not? The big corporations don't have a monopoly on the market yet. It's good, honest work. Peaceful work."

He'd obviously thought a lot about it. Abruptly Kaidan felt like an ass for treating it like a joke. "You're right," he said. "Nothing wrong with honest work."

They lapsed into a long silence. Down the hall Kaidan could hear the other boys shouting and laughing, their words unintelligible through the din. Someone said something in a sly tone and the rest of them howled so obnoxiously that an instructor had to stomp down the hall and order the offenders to their rooms. But even after the adult left guffaws and whispers reigned, and Kaidan wondered if they'd ever quiet down long enough for him to fall asleep.

He leaned back and cradled his head with his arm, watching shifting shades of darkness dance on the walls. Even in the dark Daniel's painting was visible, and Kaidan thought it almost was its own source of light, the colors were so vivid. He was glad for it, then, and glad for the odd boy who had painted it.

He thought of Rahna as he drifted closer to sleep, when the walls of convention and anxiety relax. He hardly knew her, but there was an odd kind of knowing two people eke out in the course of one conversation, that first conversation. Unknowingly they had the stage for every other meeting, and even years later that introduction would loom between them, made either bitter or sweet by happenstance. Kaidan would remember the brightness of her smile that, like Daniel's painting, seemed to throw light even in darkness. He'd remember the way her hand lingered in his, and how out of an entire ship full of people, she'd turned and spoken to him.

"Kaidan?"

Kaidan blinked the thoughts of Rahna away. "Yeah?"

"You asleep?"

He snorted. "Yeah."

Daniel rolled over and faced him, hugging a pillow to his chest. "We get the implants tomorrow," he said, a fearful hush thrumming in his voice.

"Yeah."

He couldn't be sure, but Kaidan thought Daniel's expression turned sour. "You know how to say anything other than 'yeah'?"

"Yeah," Kaidan said, and despite himself he grinned.

For his part, Daniel made a valiant show of being irritated, but not even he could keep from snickering slightly before punching his pillow into an agreeable shape and turning over, settling into sleep.

And finally, it was quiet. The boys down the hall had either fallen asleep or fallen into sleepless contemplation, their combined anxiety thick in the preoccupied silence. Though Kaidan did not relax completely, he wouldn't deny that he felt better than he had since he first set foot on the station. It was true that he was far from home, but at least he wasn't alone. And maybe – just maybe he had made a friend. There was comfort in that.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Many special thanks to my reviewers this time around: CyanB, Eleneri, Anon1, CreatedInFyre7, Cortina2, jay8008, and Empress of Cornwall, and to everyone else who faved and followed this story! Your support means the world to me. **

**The common thread in your reviews last time was 'ominous' 'dread' and 'foreboding', so mission accomplished there! We all know what the endgame here is but the details are hazy, and I'm having a lot of fun fleshing them out. **

**Feel free to drop me a review and let me know what you thought. Thank you so much for reading, guys, and I hope you enjoy! **

For someone who admittedly knew nothing about seafaring, Daniel acquitted himself extremely well. In fact, Benny would go so far as to say that the boy was the best employee he'd ever had in thirty years of running his own business, and in those early days he'd had quite a few. There were a handful of lads fresh from school who'd worked a summer on his dock before going off to college – they were strong but lacked the necessary discipline and were often prone to distracting themselves with obnoxious tomfoolery. Later, there were older men who followed orders but were stiff and bent like him, too rough around the edges, too grim even for the grey sea.

But Daniel took to the business as if he'd been born to it. There was no transitory period where he spent his days on the deck of the _Andrea Lee _clutching his knees or bent over the side, puking his guts out. He did not falter or argue when given an order, nor did he stumble against the roll of the deck on rough waters. He didn't wrinkle his nose against the stink of fish; in fact, if Benny hadn't known any better, he might have thought the boy preferred the bracing stench of fish and salt and sea, apparent whenever he faced the open horizon and took a deep breath, impervious to the spray of the waves on his face.

In the mornings they rose before the sun and set out when the water was black as pitch, breaking beneath the keel of the _Andrea Lee. _Daniel made quick work of the moorings while Benny took to the wheelhouse, firing up the ancient GPS and LORAN. As he'd done every day for the last thirty years, he kissed his first two fingers before pressing them to the face of the old wall mounted compass that had been installed by his great-grandfather, back when the _Lee _was new and fishing on the Sound was bountiful and uncontested. He tested the dredge with Daniel on deck, watchful for catches in the rigging or misplaced sounds in the winch line that ran bow to stern. Only when they finished their daily preparations did Benny steer them away from the dock and into open sea.

They avoided the corporate fleets in favor of more or less unmolested real estate in the northern Sound. There was a method to staking out a stretch of open water, one that Benny had learned at his father's side before he had learned to walk. It required an instinctive understanding of the sea, and of their quarry, slipping through the mysterious waters, the dumb instinct to live and survive thudding in their bodies, just the same as any other creature alive. Daniel's instinct in this regard was far less developed than Benny's, but despite this he seemed to want to learn. He watched silently, making connections, his dark eyes inscrutable in the grey light.

And so Daniel's first month as Benny's deckhand passed more or less without incident. The boy learned, thirsty in a way that Benny recognized so well – needful of back-breaking work, anything to dull the pain of memory. As the dull grey October gave way to November and cold as sharp as a frost-kissed razor, so did Daniel become even more remote, less a boy and more an automaton. In fact, Benny might have wondered if he hid wires under his skin if he hadn't seen the boy nick himself on the rigging one day, bright blood oozing between his fingers. Even so, he uttered not one sound of pain.

* * *

The morning dawned, and with it came a mild fever burning beneath Benny's hands. His vision shivered as he struggled upright in bed, and a hot lance of pain shot through his skull. He briefly considered taking the day off before pushing himself out of bed and thudding to the sink, splashing his hot face with water. He was getting older, he knew, and it was a rare day when he woke feeling bright and well.

So he ate a savory breakfast with Daniel and strode to the dock without any delay, though if he had been feeling better he might have noticed Daniel's fleeting look of concern when he missed the first step and stumbled onto the deck of the _Lee. _

"You all right?" Daniel asked, his hand outstretched.

Benny coughed wetly and pushed it away. "Just tired," he said, wiping his mouth. "Get a move on."

The morning passed more or less without incident, which should have been Benny's first sign of trouble. The fish weren't biting, and regardless of how far west they went, the waters were uncomfortably still. It took him the whole morning to realize that the grey sky wasn't its usual benign hue but one of darker menace.

Benny watched Daniel stride across the deck, compensating expertly for the rolling waves; not one step misplaced. He had allowed the mystery of Daniel Peterson to go more or less unquestioned because he sensed his need to escape, but he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit curiosity. The boy was an odd fixture in his life. He summoned an old ache that Benny had preferred to forget, old wounds buried for lack of the words to articulate them. He had his own secrets, so he respected the boy's silence. But every now and then, when Daniel would look up at him with guarded respect or concern when another coughing fit overtook him, he would remember that he had not always sought this lonely sea life. At one time, he had hoped for a home where cold wind didn't whistle through the walls and the only voice to be heard was his own.

It was midday, yet the sky above them hung low with dark clouds, heavy with rain. Benny didn't turn tail at the first sigh of bad weather – the _Andrea Lee_ was more than equipped to handle a bit of rain and chop – but as a sailor and fisherman he was raised to have a healthy fear of the ocean, and the way disaster can descend in a blink of an eye. He'd heard no fairy tales as a child, covers pulled to his chin; instead, his father had regaled him with stories of famous shipwrecks and maritime disasters – the _Titanic, _the _Edmund Fitzgerald, _the _Doña Paz –_ and in his dreams he would see the flames and crushing darkness and hear the screams of the lost.

A thrill of instinct ran through him, and he coughed wetly, slamming a fist to his chest to dislodge whatever it was that made it hard to breathe. "Boy!" he called when he caught his breath. "Pull up the dredge."

"Now?" Daniel said, bringing a hand to his eyes just as a hail of stinging rain broke loose from the clouds above. "We won't have gotten anything yet."

"There's nothing for it now," Benny called, his voice swallowed by the rising wind. "This one's going to be bad."

Daniel nodded and set to work. The pair of them shrugged into their heavy raingear before Benny hit the winch, watching with mild dismay as it brought the empty dredge up and over. But there was no time to be bitter over the lousy haul, not when the rain increased as it did, made bladelike by the sharpening wind. Over their heads, the grey sky churned in time with the waves, making valleys and trenches out of the water.

How hadn't he seen this storm coming? Through the years he prided himself on his finely honed instincts and his freakish ability to predict disastrous weather, a god in his own right. Yet today he'd set out toward the sea as if it were any other mild grey day, just another fisherman felled by his own hubris. He coughed again and bent over the wheel, trying desperately to catch his breath. Was it the sea that unbalanced him now? He was too preoccupied to notice fine bright flecks on his hand, too quickly wiped away to be noticed.

"Mr. Thompson!" came Daniel's voice from across the fog. He lurched upright, steadying himself on the wheel just as a wave crashed over the bow, splattering the wheelhouse. Daniel only saved himself at the last moment, seizing a handful of rigging and bracing himself against the onslaught.

"What?!"

"The winch is stuck!"

Cursing, Benny steered the _Lee _until the bow was pointed straight at the oncoming waves, the better to keep her from capsizing, before storming out of the wheelhouse and onto the deck. Another wave crashed over them, the furious water rushing under their feet and pouring back into the sea.

"What the fuck happened?!" Benny demanded, checking the rigging through decades of habit, the icy rain stinging his hand. "It was fine this morning!"

"Sir, I don't know!"

"It's your responsibility to make sure shit like this doesn't happen!"

Daniel's eyes flashed. "I said it was fine this morning!"

"You watch your tone, boy!"

"Yes, sir," Daniel bit out. For all his secrets, it was easy to see every mutinous thought cross his young face like words on a page, just as easily read. _You're the expert, _he seemed to accuse silently. _I've been doing this for a month, you've been doing it for your whole fucking life. _

And indeed, sometimes Benny forgot that Daniel was a tenderfoot boy, for his affect belied a much older, more skilled man. If they got out of this mess, he resolved not to make that mistake again.

A crack of lightning brought him crashing back to the moment; his ship tossed on the furious waves like a toy, the boy clutching the rigging as another wave broke over the bow and drenched them. Perhaps they were sunk, for at that moment he felt as if it was no longer air that he breathed, but water – salty and thick, like blood. He gasped, choking against his thick, useless lungs, struggling for purchase against the battering of the waves that came at them ceaselessly–

And in the space of that labored breath, he was lost. He saw a towering wave curl above them, streaked with foam, with a heart as dark as the depths themselves. It loomed as if hesitating, considering whether the tiny boat below it was worth such force, but in the end it descended on them like a ton of bricks. They were submerged for endless seconds before the buoyancy of the _Lee _brought them to the surface and the wave broke and rushed off the sides of the ship. And with that rushing water went Benny.

He came back to himself in the frothing, raging sea. He shot upward when his jacket inflated, bunching around his throat just as he broke the surface, and he pulled at it desperately. He struggled to breathe, to see through the furious storm, through rain that stung and wind that cut and waves that pulled on his legs with cold fingers, pulling him down, so eager. He watched the _Andrea Lee _bob on the waves as if from a great height, the bow breaking the storm, a tiny figure clutching the railing, screaming without sound.

First he thrashed, though he knew it was futile. Once you went over in this kind of storm, you were lost. If you were lucky the Coast Guard would find your body floating by when the waters calmed and the storm exhausted itself, sapped by exposure. If you weren't lucky, the storm would pull you down before your crewmates could get you. And Benny knew he wasn't lucky. He was stupid, besides, and this was punishment for his stupidity; running a fishing boat with a tenderfoot boy as his only crew, failing to heed the signs of the storm. Men had died for lesser blunders.

He coughed again. Addled and drowning, he thought that it wasn't air that he breathed but salt water. There was an old story of the fisherman who never died but dissolved into sea the second he drew his last breath, and in this final place that was what filled Benny's fever-baked brain. First his lungs would turn to the sea – that was the way of it, he knew. First what had brought him life, all these years. First what was weakest.

But he didn't die, or dissolve, or cease in any other way. Instead he saw the boy on the deck of the _Andrea Lea _with his hand outstretched, knuckles straining, fingers taut. Like Moses parting the Red Sea. Benny would have laughed in any other place, laughed himself stupid at this foolish boy for thinking he could do the same. But through the whipping rain, the bleak palette of greys and blacks he saw a different, otherworldly color flaring off the boy's skin – an electric color, like the heart of a star. It grew in intensity until it almost hurt to look at – this point of vibrant, violent color in a world of monochrome, and the unassuming boy at its epicenter.

Before Benny slipped into unconsciousness, he felt himself rise from the churning water, as if borne by the hand of God.

* * *

Kaidan sat ramrod straight and watched as a girl got to her feet and made her way across the room. A pair of officials beckoned from the opposite doorway with kind expressions on their faces, but everyone knew what waited on the other side of those doors. It was perhaps melodramatic to put it in these terms, but after today their lives would never be the same, by virtue of the scar at the base of their necks alone.

All morning they'd sat through an orientation explaining the procedure, filled with bland assurances that it was safe and had been tested many times, and there was virtually no chance something would go wrong. Kaidan had wanted to ask how that was possible if they were the first to be implanted with the L2 configuration, but his anxiety made it impossible to talk. The instructor's use of the word 'virtually' made him uneasy in ways he did not know how to articulate.

If anything, the orientation had panicked all of the students, even the ones who had spent the previous night laughing and telling jokes, seemingly unconcerned with what the morning would bring. Now, all were silent, apprehensively watching the doorway.

Daniel's brief confidence from the night before had completely evaporated. He was the boy from the ship once again, hugging his knees, a sweatshirt turbaned over his head. He had not touched his breakfast, only managing to put down a glass of orange juice before darting to the bathroom. Kaidan thought his skin looked sallow, his eyes two dark pits, impossibly wide.

Not that he judged Daniel for being scared. Only a jerk would pretend he was better than the rest for being brave. Only an idiot wouldn't be scared by what waited for them.

"Daniel Peterson," one of the officials said, glancing up from his datapad.

To his credit, Daniel did not protest or make a scene. He got to his feet slowly and folded his sweatshirt under his arm, staring straight ahead like a man bound for the guillotine. Before he left, Kaidan clapped him on the back and forced himself to smile. "See you on the other side, all right?" he said.

"Right," Daniel echoed. He returned Kaidan's smile weakly before they led him away.

Kaidan had desperately prayed to go first for his new friend's sake because he suspected it would have been easier for Daniel to go under knowing someone had come out the other end unharmed. But as it was, at least he didn't have to sit in the waiting room like a panicking statue, slowly losing the power of speech or thought.

Not for the first time, he thought of home. It was Sunday, wasn't it? Only a day had passed since he left. His parents would have woken early and gone to church. His mother would listen raptly, his father would fidget – he never had much use for service. After they'd go for a drive along the coast, enjoying the way the light played on the surface of the water, like silk embedded with a thousand diamonds.

Would they carry on as always without him? Did they even notice he was gone? He knew it was stupid to go down this line of thought, but even so he worried that the moment he'd taken his first step on the ship, he had ceased to exist to them. And when he came back, however far into the future that was, they might not know him as their son.

He didn't want this. He wanted to be back home, arguing with Pop, with Ma slung between them as the peacemaker, hands held up like signs. He wanted to watch the Canucks, sneaking sips of beer when they weren't looking. He wanted to be normal – just a dumb normal kid, dreading school on Monday instead of the bite of the scalpel at the base of his neck.

"Hey." A gentle voice broke through his internal torment, and he looked up. It was Rahna, craning so close that he could see the flecks of amber in her eyes. "You okay?"

He cleared his throat. Even here in this nightmare place, he noticed that her thick hair smelled of vanilla, and he was overcome with a mad impulse to bury his face in it. "Y-yeah," he managed, pulling away.

"Can I sit with you while I wait?"

He swallowed. "Sure."

"I didn't mean to embarrass you," she said immediately, her fingers curling together in her lap. "It's just that you looked so upset."

"You didn't embarrass me," he told her. "Everyone's nervous."

"Even so. I know how some guys are when it comes to things like this."

"How's that?"

Her smile took a mischievous edge. "They want to look tough, especially in front of girls."

"You can be tough and nervous at the same time, last I checked," he retorted without thinking.

But to his surprise and delight, she laughed. "I guess you're right."

And despite the brick of fear that was currently wreaking havoc in his gut he smiled too, for her laughter was a contagious thing, beautiful and bright as the sun. "You don't seem that nervous," he pointed out.

"Oh, I am. I was sick earlier."

The conversational tone surprised him; he hadn't ever known a girl to admit something like that. "Are … you okay now?"

"Not really. But I thought if I could cheer you up a bit, it might help me forget how scared I am." She craned closer. "Have I cheered you up a bit?"

"A bit," he said, biting back a smile. And it was true. He had almost forgotten that in mere moments his skull would be cut open and implanted with technology he didn't understand.

"Then I feel better," she said, and he knew that she meant it. "What were you thinking of before?"

He paused for just a moment. "Home," he said finally. And though he did not elaborate on his answer, he saw that she seemed to understand.

"Me too," she said, so softly he almost didn't hear her. "Today's Sunday, I think. So they'd be off to church."

"Mine too."

She nodded, encouraged. "After, Mother would spend the day cooking supper. She's old fashioned – likes to do it just like her mother did, and on and on. She's not such a great cook, but Father's a good sport; he eats it all like it was made by God Himself. Maybe because he loves my mother, it seems like it is, in a way." She fell silent, coloring a bit, and tucked a chestnut strand of hair behind her ears. "Maybe that sound silly."

Kaidan shook his head. "Pop makes these horrible bird feeders. He's pretty good at everything else, so it's kind of funny that something as simple as a bird feeder trips him up. But Ma loves them, so all the trees around our house have these hideous, busted up bird feeders."

Rahna giggled. "You see someone differently when you love them," she said, and for a moment Kaidan's heart stilled in his chest. "Food tastes different, bird feeders look different."

"Kind of an occupational hazard."

"I guess, if you look at it that way," she said thoughtfully. "I like to think of it as a benefit. How beautiful everything must be to them, if terrible food tastes wonderful and ugly bird feeders look like art."

Kaidan tried to reply, but something seemed to have frozen in the back of his throat. Instead he watched this beautiful, fascinating girl and wondered if perhaps she was right after all – before she'd come to him, this morning might have been the worst in his life, yet when she smiled his fear took a different shape, a larger, warmer color. And he knew not even the bite of a scalpel could hurt him now.

"Kaidan Alenko," called one of the officials, marking his name on the datapad with his finger. "Come with me, please."

"Good luck," Rahna said, smiling nervously.

"Thanks."

Before he turned and left, however, she placed her small hand on his arm, and his skin thrilled where she touched him, her fingers light as a sigh, soft as silk. And if he had known any better, he would have known that was the moment when he was lost; he had crossed a threshold from which there would be no unscathed return. Instead, when they administered the sedative and parted the weak skin at his neck, he only felt an odd joy that had filled him the moment she looked at him and smiled, as if there was no other person in the room.


End file.
